‘70% of software sold online by 2014’ says Avangate

E-commerce specialist Avangate is warning the channel that it must change if it wants to continue selling software.

This is aimed at software vendors and resellers alike.

Avangate’s chief marketing officer, Michael Ni, commented: “Analysts tell us that while 30 per cent of software is sold online today, that will increase to 70 per cent by 2014. This means the entire software channel’s mentality has to change from box shifting to bit shifting. Avangate can help them get there faster than anyone else.”

Avangate, an e-commerce/virtual distributor for B2C and B2B brands from BitDefender to Lavasoft, has seen 3,000 per cent growth over the last five years as the software download market has grown. It says it has 2,500 software partners signed up already, with more to come throughout 2013.

Ni believes there will be a number of challenges for vendors and resellers as the market evolves, from payments to licensing entitlements, upgrades, database ownership and so on.

He pointed out that as subscription becomes more popular, it also becomes more important than ever to engage well with customers over a long period: “Software companies are quickly adapting their businesses to subscription models, even as they increasingly build and deliver new services via the cloud. This shift to where the customers have the ability to drop their subscriptions at any time forces publishers to better understand and service them.”

Avangate offers several solutions from marketplace storefronts through to a full ecommerce platform.

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